About Bean Around The World

About BATW

WAY BACK IN 1978 PETE WAS ON A BUSINESS TRIP IN SAN FRANCISCO WHEN HE SAW HIS FIRST COFFEE ROASTER. THAT IMAGE OF FRESH ROASTED COFFEE NEVER LEFT HIS HEAD.

Then in 1990, after a year of research and soaking up all he could – which wasn’t so easy in those early-internet days – he opened a small coffee house with an in-store 5 kilo roaster in the heart of sleepy West Vancouver.

The first Bean Around The World was just as he had envisioned it back in 1978. Pete offered fresh, in-house roasted coffee in a funky, eclectic setting with friendly service and good baking. Vancouver’s first true coffee house was born!

Just two years later, probably over a cup of coffee, he joined forces with Barney Mckenzie. Barney was buying coffee from Pete for his own breakfast joint Caffe Barney in Vancouver. Barney’s customers raved about the coffee he was serving – Pete’s fresh roasted beans – and after a year of doing business with each other they had formed a great friendship. So, together, the boys opened a second Bean Around The World. The same concept was followed; a funky warm store with wooden floors and an in-house 12 kilo roaster. Business was booming and within the next year they had opened a third coffee house. Hard to believe that was all the way back in 1993.

It was only a year later when the demand for ‘The Bean’s’ fresh roasted coffee exceeded the small in-store roasters. Pete and Barney decided to roast their beans in a central location – at Cowboy Coffee on the North Shore. They travelled down to Nevada and purchased a used 22 kilo Probat coffee roaster (possibly the best excuse ever for a road trip) and when they returned, they set up shop providing fresh-roasted coffee daily to all their stores. The Cowboy Coffee Roasting Company was formed.

Today there are 21 successful Bean Around The World coffee shops. Each of the coffee houses are independently owned and operated, and each still operates under strict guidelines to ensure you still get to enjoy the flavours Pete originally envisioned when he first opened in 1990. The independence, however, allows each store to flourish in its own unique way. You’ll notice that no matter which location you go to enjoy a coffee, each store has its own distinguished features and definitely does not have the cookie cutter corporate feel of the large chains. That uniqueness and commitment to fresh roasted coffee is what Bean Around The World customers have come to appreciate right from the opening of their very first coffee house.

Today at Cowboy Coffee we are tight team of seven people working together like a family, striving daily to provide great coffee to our clientele near and far. Pete and Barney still pride themselves on the freshest, highest quality coffee, and a true West Coast coffee house experience.